| Biography | As if Liverpools very own Count of St. Germain, NEVILLE SKELLY has adjusted his style dramatically over his years in the industry, is not an easy man to track down and possesses a head with a minefield of ideas.
Yet, unlike our transforming troubadour, he has a voice that flows like nectar to the ears and proudly wears a beanie hat as a woolly two fingers up to the rest of the bewildered world. Perhaps not quite an international man of mystery but certainly elusive, we managed to pin him down one drizzly Sunday dawn to discuss his mesmerising new record, Poet & The Dreamer.
A musical chameleon, (with his days suited and slick in front of his swing orchestra long behind him) Neville was once marooned at a musical crossroad and chose to take a sinuous passage of self-discovery. By doing the album I wanted to find something that was more personal to me. I still like that music and I wouldnt change where Ive come from. Songwriters like George Gershwin and Cole Porter, well I think everyone from The Beatles to The Beach Boys were inspired by them but I wanted to find something that represented me.
His current influences are certainly not clandestinely concealed either the album incorporates his own versions of two Beatles covers along with numbers from Neil Young, Phil Ochs, Marc Bolan, Woody Guthrie and Jackson C. Frank, the latter whom he connected to more so than any other artist, inspiring him in a way to make music that was honest and soulful. His own lingering rendition of Franks signature song Blues Run The Game captures the torments of a young man haunted by despair, though Nevilles honey-drizzled sombre baritone croon could soothe even the most abstinent of listeners. |